Liskara knelt so that I might drag Andrei across her back and secure him there with several lengths of rope.
In this way we rushed south with the river, and when sandy Pemrenia swallowed the horizon, the thaw came, and the thrushes, too, with their throaty warbles. I did with Andrei what I could––put rags full of stock and mash in his mouth and forced him to swallow––and curious little balls of palendry sprouts appeared in the oddest places: high atop stone cairns, suspended by thread from trees. I suspected it had something to do with the river saebel.
If palendries were an antidote to as fierce a poison as bandorescroll I figured it couldn’t hurt to put them in Andrei. So I boiled them, and spooned the tea into his mouth, and then poured the rest across his chest.
It must have worked some, because the grey star on his chest began to fade. Or maybe it was the asters. For fear he would stop his breathing and according to some dictate of my subconscious mind, I replaced the ice aster over his wound with a fresh one from my pocket after each time I bathed him. I wasn’t worried about running out––they took up less space than eider down and I’d packed as many as I could into my pockets.
On a mild day I heard the thunder of falls. It drew nearer and nearer, and then Liskara and I were standing over the foamy beginnings of the Grennan, looking across to Norembry. She was clothed grey with early spring.
We came to the old ferry landing––busily operating now––and I threw a blanket over Andrei so he looked part of the horse’s baggage, and paid the fee to cross.
The other side rang with the clamor of a farrier. When Liskara was re-shod, we walked along the river, and the spirits of cottonwood, willow, and birch woke and sang where the water shone.
***
The time drew near, perilously near, to my five-year limit. Andrei began to stir––quick little twitches in his fingers and under his eyelids. This didn’t do much to make me feel better; I was nervous and grew more so as the days ran out. I tried coaxing Liskara faster, but she was old and carrying a load, and plodded like a lame donkey.
Whenever I saw folk walking toward us on the road I put blankets over Andrei so I looked like a girl bringing goods to market. I would ask the date, and they would reply with a sidelong glance I was too harried to care about.
And then no one came for a long stretch of time. I lost track of the days. I’d been scraping marks on a piece of bark, but one day it slipped from my fingers and under Liskara’s hoof in the rain; and I tried in vain to make out what I’d written on the tatters. Now and then a tree or stone or bluff looked familiar, and I hoped I was drawing near. But the river was so completely different now I couldn’t trust my judgment.
There came a colder, blowing day, and the feeling in my gut was of ends and beginnings. Anxious almost to tears, I called for my brothers every hour, wondering what it might feel like to go mad, tugging Liskara along.
It was by chance that Floy found me a half-mile upriver from the meeting place.
It was twilight, and raining. I heard her chips and took no notice, assuming she was just another bird filling herself full of thistle seeds along the banks. But she burst into song unnatural for a sparrow when she caught sight of Liskara clopping up the path. I dropped the leads and ran, and she slammed into my head.
“I’ve got them,” I cried before she could ask. “I’ve got them––like giant snowflakes! They’re a marvel.” For a moment she held me in her arms and her hair flooded my mouth. Then she was sitting on my shoulder, congratulating me on learning to speak again. “Where are the boys?” I asked. “What d’ye suppose would happen if you touched one?”
“It’s the last day,” she said. My knees near gave out. “Didn’t you know it? Probably not, the way you were walking. We looked for you, but we gave up––we thought you’d never come.”
A gust of wind blew into my back. The skin on my neck prickled. “Try an aster,” I said.
“Not until your brothers have a chance. You have the tunics?”
“In the saddlebag.”
“Let’s go find the boys,” she said. “They’re hanging about where I said I’d meet you, and God and the Lady, Reyna, when that river started flowing again––Oh, and the funniest thing happened in Cwdro last month. You’ll be interested to know, I’m sure, because it’s to do with Fillegal’s brigands––What happened to your finger?”
She stopped talking and looked over my shoulder. I was reminded of Leode just out of his birdcage.
Neither of the two patrolmen riding over the crest of the hill was Herist. Nevertheless, I jumped and swung a leg over the horse’s back. I shoved Andrei’s head to the side, and kicked her into a run. The men reacted quickly––one disappearing back the way he had come and the other following us, his green and grey surcoat rippling past the new foliage.
“Why’d you run?” called Floy from the air. “You’re suspect, now.”
I spurred Liskara faster, flattening myself against her back. “You didn’t say he was here.”
“Why should I have to?” She sped next to my head, batting wings against my ear. “This is where he saw you last. The Ombenelva are giving him the squeeze.”
“Oh God, Floy.”
“He’s already slowing,” said Floy. I didn’t look behind to see. “Knows he oughtn’t to risk a false alarm.”
I hugged tighter with my calves. “Why?”
She struggled to keep within earshot, clawing at my hair. And then she was swept away behind me, and I heard faintly: “Oh, Machenan. Oh sweet Machenan.”
I looked over my aching shoulders and saw the troop of cavalry spreading over the crest, casting long shadows in the late sun.
I kicked harder at Liskara. She pulled her neck forward and flattened her ears, jibbed when the path tangled and broke around rocks and roots. I heard metal clank against a stone, and I felt the slight imbalance in her strides. My heart skipped a beat. She’d thrown a shoe.
I thought to ride her down the bank, but they were certain to follow us across the river, and Liskara had to carry us both.
As if reading my thoughts, she slowed to a walk, blowing, lifting her feet resentfully. “Force her, Reyna,” said Floy. “We must keep on.” We had reached the top of a steep incline and the horse trembled under my legs. “You must force her.”
“They would’ve caught up!” Liskara balked under my legs. “They would’ve pried me off her corpse.” My hope fell apart where it had taken such effort to piece together, and tears wet my cheeks.
“Get off,” said Floy. “Run, you idiot.”
Dust billowed around me when the first soldier brought his horse to a stop beside us. He grabbed Liskara’s leads.
I jumped from the horse, saddlebag underarm, and scrambled toward the underbrush. I felt a hand around my calf, a knife at my neck. The others came swiftly, over the path and around Liskara, and the horse backed into the trees. Men stood at her shoulder and neck, and the slate scarp dropped to the river just behind us. Two of them cut Andrei from his bonds; and as they tied my wrists I saw no black cuirasses or foreign faces. I wondered where Herist was.
And then his long face was up against mine, and his shaking hands tightened around my neck. “Where is it, you bleeding pustule? Have you got it on you somewhere?” He’d a month’s growth of hair on his chin, and the wind blew the stench of liquor across my face.
He ripped away my outer wraps and pulled the knickers off my legs. I watched from another man’s grip as his hand found the pockets, and I cried out, and a gust of wind pushed into my back. He ripped out the asters and they blew away like bits of spider silk. The broach’s silver wings flashed and I sank to my knees.
I knelt in the wet grass for some time and would say nothing. He forced three of my fingers out of joint. “Gone,” I screamed. “Gone, gone, gone.”
***
The sun sank and everything moved in a dark blur, and next I knew we were in a low, octagonal tent with rows of cots.
The soldiers dumped Andrei across one of them, and Herist grabbed Andrei’s hair and joggled his head. Then he ordered the men out, all except the medic.
This was a skinny, jumpy man who bent over Andrei, examining him. He looked up after a while, rubbing his whiskers.
“Well?” said Herist.
“He’s dead. May as well be.”
“He’s sleeping,” I said, and Herist pushed a thumb into my neck.
“Comatose,” said the medic.
“Dead,” said Herist. “Bitten by a poisonous little spider.” He dropped me into a chair. “And we’ll pull her legs off one by one until she tells us where she hid her little sac.”
“It’s gone.” My crooked fingers shook.
He rammed my head back, and the chair fell over. The dirt stuck to my wet face. I wondered how my blood could be so hot and my sweat so cold.
A wind blew in and Gershom ducked through the door flap. Herist’s voice was like a whip-crack. “I said no interruptions.”
He fell silent when he saw the Ombenelvan soldier behind Gershom, face glowing gold in the lamplight.
“Sir,” said Gershom, “they’re discontent with the brigands.”
Herist said to the Ombenelvan man: “Kill all of them if you like.”
The man ran a hand over his mustache. “A month ago my commander requested that you provide him with an oblation.” He spoke slowly, with patience. “That is all my commander requested. You have failed.”
“I have provided eighteen of them, convicted in a martial court.”
“They speak a strange language. They don’t belong to you, nor to your country, nor your army. They belong to no one. Outlanders, rubbish. They answer to nothing but rocks and trees.” His accent cut through the tent. “We want a criminal.”
“If you think,” said Herist, stepping close to the man, “that I would keep and feed a criminal all through the winter for the sake of your pigshit god––”
“You speak blasphemy.” The man showed all his white teeth. “The scent of your burning flesh will please Orshinq.”
“You daren’t.” Sweat shone on Herist’s forehead. Big as he was, the Ombenelvan man was much bigger. “Your government sold you to me.”
The Ombenelvan man laughed. “I do not think the transaction was completed, Master Herist. Here we outnumber you five to one––” He stopped abruptly, and I followed the line of his eyes all the way down to my arm. I was propped half-up on my elbow.
“A traitor’s mark,” said the Ombenelvan man. I hid my forearm, my scar, under my stomach.
“You can’t use her.” Herist ripped his overcoat off, threw it on a chair.
“She is a traitor, you say it again and again, ‘Watch for the traitor gone north.’”
“She’s killed the heir apparent. Her business is with me.”
“A murderess now, you say, killer of the heir apparent?” The Ombenelvan man walked over, grabbed my arm, and pulled me to my knees. He turned my arm over and traced a finger along the old scar. His breath was rank. I gagged and he smiled at me. “What crime is more monstrous? Give her to us, Master Herist, and maybe we won’t burn your flesh for Orshinq and take your men from you.”
He released my arm and I slid back down to the floor. He turned and left, his breath still stinking the air. Gershom stayed by the door, wringing his hands like a woman. Herist stared at me.
“What use is she?” he said. “Could I flame her tongue into wagging?” He sneered, but his hands shook. I took no comfort in his terror. “Gershom,” he said to his man, “take her to the pen to wait well I think what to do. Have Esperow prepare a pyre. We’ll burn the boy.”
“And if he should wake?”
“What better way to make sure he doesn’t?”
“Commander,” Gershom kept on bravely, “he took off with the thing––”
Herist gave a hysterical bark of laughter. “You think he’ll be more forthcoming than the girl? He’s too much trouble. I want him dead.”
***
“We haven’t enough wood,” said Esperow to Gershom, who dragged me behind him.
The green and grey of Herist’s garrison spread over the side of a hill overlooking the river. Beyond this a dark sea of Ombenelvan tents disappeared into the twilight. The Ombenelvan man had spoken truly: his fellows vastly outnumbered Herist’s. A few points of fire twinkled here and there in the purple––not many, though, because of the damp. The ground under my feet was mud; spurts of rain blew against my face.
“There were to have been three people burned for that ceremony,” said Gershom. “Now there’s only one. That would leave us enough wood, I should think.”
“It’s wet.” Esperow was small, old, with a couple strings of hair still on his head. “Some shitbrain set it out too early, and it rained all yesterday. All last week. And it’s raining now.”
We walked over another large hill, half-covered in yew. The Cheldony was below us, murmuring sweetly. There was a large rock jutting from the side of the hill, and we came directly under it. Upright logs had been jammed into a cave-like recess, right next to each other, like a palisade wall.
Gershom walked me to a door in the wall. Two sentries unbolted it. One of them prodded his torch inside, as though to scare something away. In the glow of the torch I saw dim shapes moving, and smelled the stink of excrement and unwashed bodies.
“Everything’s sodden,” Esperow continued to complain, “and a pyre needs a mountain of wood. Why don’t we just dump the boy in the river?”
“Take your light away,” came a voice from inside the pen. “Blinding my eyes out.”
“A pyre?” called another voice from the pen. “Who’s dead?”
“Keep quiet, or I’ll stick this in your neck.” The other guard thumped his spear against the side of the door.
The first guard didn’t take his torch away. “Against the wall, you.”
“Who needs a pyre?” said the guard with the spear.
Esperow spat to the side. “The Queen’s bastard, shitbrain.”
There was a brief silence. Then the soldiers started laughing, and someone called out of the pen, “I can’t imagine he’d’ve wanted to go that way. Did he die of some sort of contagion, that Herist would burn him?”
“No,” said Esperow. “Murdered.”
“He’s really dead?” said the guard with the torch. “How did he come to be dead? Did they catch the girl?”
“Who killed the royal bastard? Did you kill ’im, rat?” came another voice from the pen. It spoke a mangled Rielde. “Should we raise a toast to you? Or did the snake kill him? Snakey wanted him dead.”
“Who killed him?” echoed the guard with the spear.
Gershom thrust me into the dark doorway. “Her.” He stuck his head in after me and said, “You three that were to burn, you’re off. They’re using her.” He laughed. “A proper insurgent.”
A collective breath of relief blew out from the dark. Faces, dim in the torchlight, stared wonderingly at me. They seemed familiar, as if from some half-forgotten nightmare.
“The Mother’s frozen teats,” said one.
“No, no, look––” A hand dragged me in further and twisted my face toward the light.
“Lally?” said a girl. “You bumped off the prince?” Her dirty face moved closer to the light. It was scrunched in laughter, but I recognized it. It belonged to a taller, knobbier Emry Nydderwaic. “I allus knew it would end badly with ye.”
I reached into my battered head and pulled out words. “He in’t dead.” My knees buckled and I sat in the straw.
“And I also allus knew,” said Emry, sitting down in front of me, “ye was never mim-mouthed when it came to lyin. But don’t expect those nitwits ter believe you.” She pointed at the four soldiers who were still arguing in the door. “And who cares if you killed him? Were a good thing you done, so far’s I know. Especially as they wanted to burn me the most and now you’re takin me place! They was gonna burn Toad and Gorky, too, cause they fought like baited bears, but it was me they wanted to burn specially. Cause I’m Chief.”
“Oh,” I said. Though she was right in front of me I could only see the outline of her. She was taller than me. “Are you Chief now?”
“Yup.” I put my face in my hands and rolled onto my stomach. “Don’t believe me, Aloren? Ask Seacho. I’m Chief, ain’t I, Seacho?”
“Emry’s Chief,” said the man who must be Seacho. “She hain’t had much chance to prove her mettle, though.” This was greeted by laughter from those who’d heard.
“Weren’t by choice,” she said. “Back about the time we was rustlin horses”––prattle away, Emry, I thought, prattle me into oblivion––“we was sittin by the town well in Cwdro, selling haul an’ actin like townsfolk. Guess it didn’t work, cause we was surrounded suddenly by Snakey’s soldiers, and we all backed up against the well till we couldn’t back up no farther. And some of us drew our steel but them soldiers didn’t want a fight––they wanted our Chief. So Fillegal says the Chief weren’t around, he was off takin a piss, and then the old goat grabs me and says, ‘but this one’ll please ye far more than any old Chief.’ And then I turns round and pushes Fillegal down the well. He screamed like a cat, but there were no splash. Anyway, the soldiers was still askin who our Chief was, and all the boys pointed at me, the shitheads.”
“That in’t no way for a lady Chief to talk,” said a man in the back. Laughter again. I closed my eyes and saw the asters, sparkling like ice. I wished I could go mad now, get it over with.
“Shut up, Maradilly,” said Emry. “I’ll boil yer balls into puddin and feed em to you, ye so fancy singing like a girl.”
“Stop your jabber,” said one of the soldiers through the doorway, and pointed his torch at us. “Makes me nervous.”
“Is it true you haven’t any dry wood?” called a man among us to the guard. “Is Herist making the Ombenelva put it off?” He spoke in clean Rielde. Too clean for a brigand. “Again?”
Someone whistled. “Again? They won’t like that.”
“Remember when they took little Drobo out o’ the pen?” said another brigand. “I reckon they ate him. They’ll probably eat you poor sods next.”
“We’ll find wood,” snapped the soldier with the torch.
“Why not use the wood here, from the wall?” said the man who spoke first. “It’s dry enough under this rock.”
“Aye, the nob’s put his finger on it. Dry as a hag’s cunt, this stuff.” The brigand named Maradilly slapped the wooden walls.
“Take down the walls and use them like Nobber says,” said another brigand. “Then the Yellows will save eating you for another day.”
I realized what they were doing. The soldiers realized it, too.
“Maybe,” said Esperow, “but Snakey wants you snug in your pen.”
“Who cares what Snakey wants,” said a brigand. “The Ombens want him boned and boiled. And they’ll boil you fellers, too, if you don’t keep em happy.”
“Snakey,” said Esperow to Gershom, “might like the idea better if we pass it off as our own.”
They muttered amongst themselves some more, and the door thunked shut. Darkness fell down. I heard boots tromping off through the mud.
“Let me see your hand.”
The man who spoke clean Rielde crawled from his corner. In the scant torchlight that fell through the logs I could see his shirt had an embroidered collar. The very same shirt Trid had been wearing at the canal’s edge.
“Trid.” I sat up. His voice had gone deeper. “What the hell?”
“Shh,”he said, “they’ll hear you.” Maybe I was already mad, going through in my mind all the people I had known. Maybe my brothers would be next.
“You know the nob?” Emry leaned forward. “Not a bad sort. He even speaks Rielde. Y’ever hear of an owl speaking Ri––”
“Be quiet,” said Trid. “We ought to sew your mouth shut. I’m a hostage.” He took my right hand tightly in his own––he smelled as ripe as the brigands––and lifted my little finger. He snapped the joint back in place. That was real enough. The pain flashed through my head like a light and I screamed.
“Sorry.”
I screamed two more times, for my other fingers. A guard drummed on the walls and shouted for the brigands to stop using me, and the brigands yelled back in their incomprehensible argot (how had I ever understood it?), and Trid said, “Herist and my uncle are no longer friends.”
“Pity for you.” I bent, trying not to vomit. The pain still coursed through my hand and I put it before me in the straw.
“Herist keeps me alive and close so long as Caveira does as he’s told with the troops of Dirlan. Apparently my uncle treasures me. How did Andrei die?” The dark hid his face and I couldn’t guess at his expression. “Did you kill him?”
“In’t dead,” I said.
“Why’re they burnin him?” said Emry.
Trid’s breath quickened. “What happened to him? What’ve you two done with the Aebelavadar?”
“It’s gone,” I said exasperatedly.
“Gone? That’s bad. Really, really bad. The Ombenelva’ll––”
“Enslave everyone? Want to hear worse?” I rubbed my aching fingers. “Andrei stabbed a djain with a dagger. That’s why he looks dead.”
Trid made a sort of humming noise, and began to laugh.
“Ain’t funny. He’s asleep, been that way for a half a month.”
“And you think he’s not dead?” said Emry, who couldn’t keep from listening.
“I’m sure she knows how to check a pulse,” said Trid. “He’ll live, I think, if Herist doesn’t kill him. Humans––” He hesitated. “Humans have natural defenses against the djain. Something to do with our eyes.”
There were millions of things I didn’t know about humans. “Eyes?”
“I’ve been told. We’ve got to think how to rescue him. And you. We’ve been making weapons”––he dropped his voice even more––“Bows, staves, mostly. They’re buried in the ground. The palisade’s yew.” He laughed again. It sounded like a sob. “We managed to slip a hatchet off a sentry’s belt––it was dark and he was taking out the piss bucket, and he’s probably no idea where it went––and we rip the logs out and split the wood when it rains hard, and the river gets noisy. And the soldiers sometimes give us viols and things. They like to hear these fellows play. They’re uncommonly good.”
“Why, thankee, Nobber,” said Maradilly. “You ought to invite us to court, and we’ll sing ye a ballad of love––The Nob and his Lady Chief––” Emry reached over and smacked him.
Trid ignored them. “We just take the strings off them, say, ‘Aw, they broke.’”
“That stuff we make’s rubbish,” said Seacho. “Once we break out we’ll find better.”
“Once we break out we’ll be eaten by the Ombens,” said a little boy.
“No,” said Emry. “We’ll escape inter the woods. Where we belong.”
“I heard on the way here,” said Trid, talking to all of them now, “I heard Even-Alehn troops’ve landed in Ellyned. And they’re moving this way.”
“So?” said Maradilly.
“My meaning is, if we break out some of us should ride to find them.”
“Ain’t that somethin? Nobber’s aimin to make good folks of us.”
“You really want the Ombenelva here?”
“Don’t see how it concerns us,” said Seacho.
“You owe me,” said Trid. “I came up with the idea, remember.”
They argued in this vein for some time. I didn’t listen but stared into the dark and thought of ice asters, thousands of them, running like sea foam through my hands. I lay down in the stinking straw and tried to think of other things. My mother, putting down a bowl of water for a big, black dog. Floy, the freckles on her high forehead, her hair bouncing on her back. Mordan’s eyes, like two moons. Arin in the bath, rolling my wet hair into spikes. A boy with curly hair––Wille––rubbing the cold out of my arms and telling me about windragons. Another boy, his shoulder still as stone under my head, as if he were scared I would fly away. His face was so sad I stopped thinking on it and fell into a doze.
***
Some time later light flooded the place, so bright I put my hands over my face. “I’ve come to collect the girl,” someone said. He was silhouetted in the door.
No one said anything. Hands reached out and pushed me towards the door. My stomach churned, and my blood beat angrily––I didn’t want to burn.
I grabbed the hands and pulled myself back, biting and scratching. They howled and slapped me away, and I started screaming. “You whoresons, hiding in the dark.”
The soldier got me from behind, and Trid’s eyes glinted in the light. Then the door closed and I was on the outside of it.